The End of Apps? Carl Pei Says AI Agents Will Replace Your Smartphone’s Home Screen

In a bold declaration at SXSW 2025, Carl Pei, the co-founder and CEO of Nothing, made a prediction that could shake the very foundation of mobile technology: apps are going extinct, and AI agents are about to take over.

Pei, whose company is best known for its transparent, design-forward smartphones, isn’t just theorizing. He’s building toward a future where your phone doesn’t run apps—it runs you. That’s right: your device will anticipate your needs, execute tasks without being asked, and eliminate the endless tapping and swiping that define today’s smartphone experience.

“In terms of AI in software, I think people should understand that apps are going to disappear,” Pei said bluntly during a sit-down interview at the Austin conference. “So, if you’re a founder or a startup and your app is where the core value lies, that will be disrupted whether you like it or not.”

This isn’t Pei’s first rodeo with AI ambition. Last year, Nothing closed a $200 million Series C funding round, led by Tiger Global, with a pitch centered around an AI-first smartphone. The vision? A device so intelligent and personalized that you wouldn’t need to double-check its output—it would just work.

But now, at SXSW, Pei expanded the vision even further.

Step One: AI as Your Digital Butler

According to Pei, the first phase of this AI revolution is already underway. Some companies are experimenting with AI features that can execute commands on your behalf—booking flights, reserving hotels, ordering food. But Pei isn’t impressed.

“That’s super boring,” he admitted.

Why? Because it still requires explicit instructions. You tell the AI what to do, and it does it. That’s helpful, sure, but it’s not transformative.

Step Two: AI That Knows What You Want Before You Do

The next phase is where things get spicy. Imagine an AI that doesn’t just respond to commands, but learns your intentions over time. Want to get healthier? Your phone nudges you to take the stairs. Planning a trip? It suggests destinations based on your mood, calendar, and past behavior.

“I think it gets even more powerful when it starts surfacing suggestions for you; you don’t have to manually come up with an idea,” Pei said. “When the system knows us so well, it will come up with things that we don’t even [know] we wanted.”

He likened this to ChatGPT’s memory feature, but taken to the next level—embedded into the very fabric of your device.

Step Three: The End of the App Era

Here’s where Pei’s vision gets radical. Today’s smartphones, he argues, are stuck in a 20-year-old paradigm. Whether it’s an iPhone or an Android, the interface is still built around lock screens, home screens, and app grids. You open an app, navigate menus, tap buttons, and repeat.

“It’s very hard to get things done on a phone,” Pei said. “Let’s say we want to grab coffee. That’s an intention. But to execute that intention, we have to go through so many different steps and so many different apps. It’s probably like four apps to grab coffee with somebody—some messaging app, some kind of maps, Uber, calendar.”

Frustrating, right? Pei thinks so too.

His solution? An AI-first interface that removes the friction entirely.

“I think the future of smartphones or operating systems should just be: ‘I know you very well, and if I know your intention, I just do it for you,’ instead of having to go through all the apps manually.”

The Interface of the Future: Built for AI, Not Humans

This doesn’t mean apps will vanish overnight. Nothing’s current OS even allows users to “vibe code” their own mini apps. But the long-term goal is clear: an interface designed for AI agents, not human fingers.

Today’s AI agents often mimic human interaction—tapping through menus, scrolling, clicking buttons. But Pei says that’s not the future.

“That’s not the future. The future is not the agent using a human interface. You need to create an interface for the agent to use. I think that’s the more future-proof way of doing it.”

In other words, the next generation of smartphones won’t have app stores. They’ll have AI APIs—direct connections between your intentions and the services that fulfill them.

The Disruption Is Coming—Like It or Not

Pei’s vision is as disruptive as it is compelling. For startups and developers whose business models rely on app ecosystems, this is a wake-up call. The app gold rush of the 2010s may be giving way to the AI agent era of the 2020s.

And while Nothing is still in the early stages of this journey, Pei’s confidence is unshakable. He believes the technology is almost there—it just needs to be packaged in a way that feels seamless, intuitive, and, above all, human.

Because in the end, that’s what this is all about: not replacing humans with AI, but freeing humans from the tedium of digital bureaucracy.

The question is: are we ready to let go of our apps?

Tags:

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